On February 20th, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a large portion of President Trump’s vast tariff regime, holding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. In response, the Trump administration announced its determination to find alternate routes for its America First trade policy. While the legal, political, and economic significance of the historic Learning Resources v. Trump decision has already been widely analyzed, the decision also clarified that a relatively low-profile court with unique jurisdictional authority will hear any subsequent tariff challenges.

 The Learning Resources opinion, written by Chief Justice Roberts, focused almost entirely on issues of statutory interpretation, with the majority ultimately concluding that IEEPA’s language allowing the president to “regulate…imports” during a declared emergency does not include tariffs. However, in an inconspicuous footnote, the Court affirmed that the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) possessed exclusive jurisdiction over the case, a previously unresolved issue that had been the source of disagreement between two federal courts who separately struck down the tariffs. This finding was reflected in the subtle disposition of the case, which affirmed the Federal Circuit’s holding, and vacated the judgment of the U.S. Court for the District of Columbia, remanding the original Learning Resources case to be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

The Learning Resources Jurisdictional Decision

The final ruling in Learning Resources was the product of two cases that were consolidated by the Supreme Court in September for expedited review: V.O.S. Selections v. Trump, which originated in the CIT and was affirmed by the Federal Circuit; and Learning Resources, originating in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In the latter case, the DC District Court granted a preliminary injunction to pause enforcement of the tariffs. The Supreme Court subsequently granted a writ of certiorari before judgment, allowing the plaintiffs to bypass the DC Circuit. In granting the injunction, the DC District Court simultaneously denied a motion by the Government that argued the case should be transferred to the CIT because the trade court possessed exclusive jurisdiction over tariff-related cases. Meanwhile, in its decision affirming the CIT’s holding that IEEPA did not authorize the tariffs, the Federal Circuit held that the CIT did possess exclusive jurisdiction over challenges to the executive orders at issue, putting it directly at odds with the DC District Court.

Both jurisdictional rulings by the lower courts were grounded in the interpretation of 28 U.S.C. § 1581(i)(1)(B), which gives the CIT “exclusive jurisdiction” over any civil action against the United States that “arises out of any law of the United States providing for…tariffs.” The Federal Circuit found that the plaintiffs were challenging purported modifications of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS), which are considered to be “statutory provisions of law for all purposes.” Since the modifications to the tariff schedule were considered “laws of the United States,” the Federal Circuit found that challenges to the modifications met the statutory requirement that the CIT possessed exclusive jurisdiction.

The D.C. District Court, by contrast, found that challenges to the tariff executive orders did not fall within the CIT exclusive jurisdiction statute, thereby enabling the court to hear the original Learning Resources case. Denying the Government’s motion for transfer to the CIT, the district court found that IEEPA was not, in fact, a “law providing for tariffs,” which was also why a preliminary injunction was warranted. In essence, the DC District Court viewed the jurisdictional and merits questions as requiring near-identical analysis—if a law, such as IEEPA, “provides for” tariffs, then exclusive jurisdiction lies with the CIT and the imposition of tariffs under the statute is not unlawful. On the other hand, if a law does not provide for tariffs, as it found likely to be the case with IEEPA, then the CIT would not have exclusive jurisdiction, and the invocation of the statute to impose tariffs would be unlawful.

The D.C. District Court’s analysis would have created a rather confounding jurisdictional landscape. It explicitly tied the question of who should hear a tariff challenge to whether those tariffs were legal, which would be the ultimate substantive question that a court would need to decide. By this logic, the CIT could only hear tariff-related cases if it was undisputed that the underlying law authorized those tariffs. A plaintiff seeking to challenge a president’s imposition of tariffs would want to file their suit in any court except for the CIT, because a suit in the CIT would essentially concede that the statutory mechanism for the imposition of tariffs was legal. This would severely curtail the CIT’s ability to hear cases on the subject of international trade law, which is quite literally the purpose for which it was established.

Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion agreed with the Federal Circuit. The opinion found that the executive orders did in fact “arise[] out of” modifications to the HTSUS, placing the plaintiffs’ challenges squarely within the CIT’s 1581(i) exclusive jurisdiction, and holding that the D.C. District Court lacked jurisdiction over the original Learning Resources case.

The Supreme Court’s jurisdictional decision has now placed the CIT in the spotlight, as the Trump administration seeks to reimpose the same tariff regime as before using different statutory authorities. Shortly after the decision’s announcement, President Trump held a press conference in which he announced the reimposition of the 10% global tariffs using Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. The administration also announced its intention to use other authorities, such as Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 and Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, and has already begun several Section 301 investigations. All of these mechanisms, like their IEEPA predecessor, will impact importers and domestic industries, some of whom have already brought further legal challenges. Those cases will be heard by the CIT.

The History and Significance of the CIT

The U.S. Court of International Trade occupies a strange space in the federal landscape. It is the only federal court of first instance established under Article III of the Constitution that has nationwide subject-matter jurisdiction and that is composed of its own judges. Other Article III courts with nationwide jurisdiction, such as the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) pull from district court judges nominated by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In this way, it is a peer to the ninety-four U.S. district courts, all of which have jurisdiction over a geographic area, rather than a specialized area of the law. Appeals from the CIT are heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which also hears cases originating in several Article I tribunals, such as the Court of Claims and Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

Ostensibly, the CIT has broad, exclusive jurisdictional authority to hear cases arising under the customs and trade laws of the United States. This would include any challenges to legislative or executive actions that are argued to be unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful. In practice, however, most of the cases that come before the CIT are administrative appeals—challenges to the imposition of customs duties by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), or to the imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties by the Department of Commerce and International Trade Commission.

In other words, much of the CIT’s work is dense, technical evaluation of agency determinations that, at most, implicate a few foreign producers or their domestic customers. While incredibly consequential for the involved parties, CIT cases are historically much more likely to adjudicate disputes over a few percentage points of an import duty on a Chinese manufacturer than the legality of an executive order. The court’s core function is working within established statutory frameworks, not deciding whether the executive can act under those statutory frameworks in the first place.

The CIT is still a relatively new Court, however, having been constituted in 1980, and its reputation as a specialty tribunal with little ability to make national (or international) headlines could be subject to change in 2026. Its predecessor, the U.S. Court of Customs, did consider a challenge to President Nixon’s tariffs in 1974, which invoked the Trading With the Enemy Act. In that case, Yoshida v. United States, the Customs Court struck down Nixon’s tariff regime, though it was later reversed by the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals. But by the time the CIT came into existence, the U.S. was barreling towards unipolar status on the world stage, and the Reagan administration was beginning to stake out an unapologetically pro-liberalization trade agenda. Subsequent administrations, both Republican and Democratic, would continue this free trade posture.

Nearly four decades after the CIT replaced the Court of Customs, the first Trump administration disrupted the free trade consensus that had mostly kept major separation of powers challenges away from the court. In 2018, the court heard challenges to the first Trump administration’s steel and aluminum tariffs under Section 232, generally upholding the administration’s actions. And in 2020, the court fielded challenges to the administration’s Section 301 tariffs on China, which it also declined to strike down. The Section 301 decision was recently upheld in a September ruling by the Federal Circuit. The administration has signaled that more Section 232 and 301 investigations are on the horizon to replace the role of IEEPA. The CIT may be called upon to evaluate these, along with other post-Learning Resources executive actions.

What Comes Next

Even before the Supreme Court’s decision, the CIT was flooded with claims by importers who are seeking refunds for the now-unlawful duties they paid over the past year. Nearly 2,000 importers previously filed cases seeking refunds that the CIT stayed pending the Supreme Court’s decision. U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer stated that the administration needs guidance on refunds, and that CIT will have to “step in and give some direction” on how they want refunds to be done.

On March 4th, CIT Judge Richard K. Eaton in Atmus Filtration, Inc. v. United States ordered CBP to stop liquidating the now-invalid IEEPA tariffs from all future entries, and to reliquidate previously liquidated duties where possible to exclude those tariffs. The order also distinguished the CIT’s congressionally granted nationwide jurisdiction from federal district courts, allowing it to grant universal injunctions even in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Trump v. Casa, Inc., which found that universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority granted to district courts. On March 6th, however, the CIT paused the Atmus Filtration order after CBP claimed that it needed more time to overcome operational challenges to effectively process the correct liquidations. The mechanics of the refund process, and the CIT’s declaration that it can issue universal injunctions, are subject to appeal, which the U.S. government may be inclined to take to the Federal Circuit.

Additionally, the IEEPA case is not the last tariff or trade-related executive action to be challenged by litigants. No president has ever used Section 122 to impose tariffs, as Trump has now done, though the provision allows presidents to impose “temporary import surcharges” up to 15% for up to 150 days. On March 5th, twenty-four states filed a suit in the CIT, challenging the legality of the Section 122 duties. Then, on March 9th, private plaintiffs brought a separate case challenging the tariffs, partially relying on a nondelegation doctrine argument. The Supreme Court made clear that these tariff-related legal questions must be brought before the CIT in the first instance, which has already changed the nature of the court’s docket and will continue to draw national attention to its work. Both cases have been assigned to a three-judge panel, and oral arguments in the states’ case will be held on April 10th.

What was until recently considered an Article III extension of the administrative state’s technical trade regime has now been affirmed to be the authority on extraordinarily consequential questions of executive power in a volatile time for U.S. trade relations. While the Supreme Court’s jurisdictional holding in Learning Resources is buried in a footnote, it may prove to be just as consequential as the holding on the merits. It has empowered the CIT to opine on major constitutional issues and channeled aggrieved plaintiffs to bring their fight against the Trump administration’s trade policy to a single, specialty judicial forum.

Ryan Shaw is a 3L at the University of Michigan Law School, and an incoming clerk at the U.S. Court of International Trade. This article solely reflects the personal views of the author.